So @fordnation has a harebrained plan to run school this summer. From my little corner of the world, there is lots of trouble with this plan. First, busing. I spent 14 years on the parent council of my daughter's public school...

and was often told that busing was the most expensive school expenditure. We live in a small village and roughly half of all students were bused. We probably had 4 to 6 buses pick up and drop off everyday. Buses drivers are paid little to do their routes....

why would they want to clean and disinfect their bus in between runs for little pay? From my understanding, drivers are paid per route, not length of time. Also routes would double or even triple if you enforced social distancing...on child every second seat to be safe.

Whereas, in the past 2 children per seat or even three, in younger grades were the norm. Summers in Southern Ontario can get hot and humid. It is not unheard off to have temperatures 30 deg or higher in June, July or August. Buses have no air conditioning and neither do schools.

My children never attended an elementary or secondary school that was air conditioned. Often times the library and offices were air conditioned but never classrooms. Their are lots of studies you can find that report that the higher the temperature gets the less learning occurs.

So if students are in class for 6 hours a day and have an hour bus ride to and from school each day that is a lot of time in the summer heat and humidity. Heat stroke and dehydration become real concerns.

I would imagine that contracts for teachers, support staff, and janitorial staff wold have to be renegotiated to account for the summer hours. @fordnation and his government have already proven to be disrespectful and ignorant at the bargaining table. Why would anyone want to...

reopen negotiations with them? Also, many high school students rely on their summer jobs to pay for their post secondary education. If children are in summer school then summer camps and babysitters are no longer needed, or at least not for the whole summer...

and a huge source of summer jobs is gone. Many schools are filled past capacity so social distancing will not be easy to achieve. The time line also leaves little time for schools to figure out the social distancing piece. Also, more janitorial staff will need to be hired to...

ensure bathrooms, desks, and other high-touch surfaces are kept clean. And the technology piece of e-learning has still not been solved. I hear of many in my small village complaining of their wifi problems and I live 15 minutes from Kitchener Waterloo...

a bustling technology hub in Southern Ontario. Many were worried that their week, spotty connections were not going to hold this spring while their University students were writing their exams at home. My SIL, who now lives in Stratford, said she would not have been able to do...

her Controller job from home if they were still living on their rural property. And, in a pandemic where restaurants, libraries, and coffee shops are closed, it is hard to go find better wifi. Throughout their school years, come May and my children would be exhausted and grumpy.

I often thought that the school year carried on about 6 weeks too long for them. This is a stressful, unpredictable time for children already and the mental health component has been left out of this plan. And also for teachers, who are stressed out trying to...

plan online lessons for their students while keeping up with other tasks at home and even teaching their own children. They may need a break too. Research on children after Katrina found that many children still excelled in life, becoming doctors and lawyers etc. as normal.

Losing a school year did not really make a difference. I am sure that I missed more issues on this subject and would love to hear what you think about @fordnations plan for summer school. Would you let your child go?